News

House Approves Border Security Spending Bill, 223-189

by
Bill Chappell
NPR |
Aug. 25, 2014 8:22 a.m.

In an attempt to weigh in on an immigration issue before Congress leaves Washington for a five-week break, the House has voted 223-189 to approve a $694 million emergency funding bill. The Republican-backed legislation is a response to the rising number of minors who have crossed the U.S. border unaccompanied and without going through the necessary legal steps.

The Border Security Supplemental Spending Bill was endorsed one day after the House Republican leadership canceled its plan to hold a vote on the legislation. The bill is not expected to have a chance of passage in the Senate, which didn’t approve a different version of similar legislation before it left for an end-of-summer break.

As we reported Thursday, the bill would boost “funding for overwhelmed border agencies, add immigration judges and detention space, send National Guard troops to the border, and change the law so that the youths can be sent home quickly without deportation hearings that are now guaranteed, according to The Associated Press.”

The vote came hours after President Obama criticized Congress for not acting on immigration and other issues he said need to be dealt with to help America’s economy continue to improve.

Later Friday, the House is expected to take up a bill regarding the Deferred Action for Child Arrivals program, which gives officials discretion to defer the deportation of people who entered the U.S. illegally before they turned 16.